


Seven Hours

by blue_fish



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Bondage, Breathplay, Community: inception_kink, Gunplay, M/M, fandom: inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:55:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_fish/pseuds/blue_fish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Eames play a game. Marathon sexing, gunplay,  mild breathplay and crushkink, and some other kinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Hours

"Let's have a game," Eames had said, and Arthur knew him well enough to wonder if this "game" might end them up in: jail, the hospital, Cobb's bad graces, or bed.

Bed, it turned out, for which Arthur was grateful. At least at first.

"And you can absolutely, absolutely do this to me at another time if you want to," Eames had said previously, trying Arthur's wrists to the bed, splayed out to either side, "and you absolutely have to tell me if it's enough. Seriously, don't fuck around. You don't need a safe word. Just tell me to stop and I will."

Arthur had smiled at the time, only vaguely worried but not really. This was Eames and they had fucked around before, even before coming to terms with their rivalry. It beat being alone, and Eames, he had since found, was not in fact a mess of day-old stubble, snide remarks and garish socks. His on-the-job competency was not a fluke and it extended well outside of dream-space. Sure he couldn't do math (Arthur could, beautifully in his head,) but he could do damn near everything else, he could talk for hours without once sounding like an idiot, and he knew art.

And he had once told Arthur, "You're really not uptight at all, are you? You're quite fun, really, when you get going."

"Why would I tell you to stop?" Arthur had asked him. "The idea you said, was that you were going to, what, prolong my orgasm? That sounds like something I'd ask you to continue. If you think about it."

"Well yes, of course," Eames had said, sitting back on his heels and surveying his handiwork with a critical eye. "But I mean before then, obviously I'll have to do some things to you to get you there. And I'll probably have to make you come a few times before then. You know, so that you can hold off."

"A couple of times?" Arthur had asked, incredulous. "I'm thirty, not eighteen."

"Well, that will be part of the fun. Now let's get a few things straight. You're all right with guns I imagine."

Arthur had quirked an eyebrow at that. "Unless you're going to shoot me, I guess."

"Unloaded."

"Oh. Sure."

"And maybe some other things."

 _Some other things,_ Arthur had considered, and then shrugged and thought, _Why not?_ He could ask him to stop. He'd seen the inside of Eames's subconscious many times. He knew of all the dangers and traps that he kept there, and none of them seemed malicious. Not toward him, anyway. That was the thing of it: Eames liked him. He'd discovered that inside his head.

"Okay," Arthur had said back then, when he still had words in his brain and the breath with which to vocalize them. "Sure. Let's see what you got."

 

Hour 1:

What Eames had, of course, was a ridiculously talented mouth, and he knew it. He had used it on Arthur in the past, to great effect, and this time he didn't hold back. Forgoing finesse, he just sucked him off quickly, just to get it out of the way.

Arthur lay breathing heavily, flushed, probably thinking "well that was nice, I guess." Eames could almost read his persnickety little mind – although Arthur wasn't as persnickety as he had once thought.

"Can I just have my arms back for a second?" Arthur asked, way too coherent and casual thus far. "I have an itch on my back."

Eames undid one arm, and before Arthur could reach behind him to scratch, Eames turned him onto his side and scratched his back for him.

"To the left," Arthur said, arching like a cat. "Ahh. Thanks."

Eames kept scratching, running blunt nails all over Arthur's back until he was red and grunting happily. Then he curled himself behind Arthur and pressed his face to the back of his neck, at his hairline, biting gently at the back of his neck. He stroked his hand down his side. His skin was still cool to the touch.

When Eames reached around for his cock, Arthur hissed and pulled away.

"Come on, man, I'm not ready yet."

"Oh my dear," Eames said, with a soothing lick to his shoulder-blade, "that doesn't matter."

"Ah, it's too... fucking...Ah... Eames, Jesus."

Arthur writhed, twisting away from his hand and then towards it. "I don't think I can. God."

"We'll see," Eames said. And he did see. After about twenty minutes, he did.

 

** ** **

Hour 2:

Three times, he'd gotten Arthur off in the space of that first hour, and he knew that it was probably painful. That nagging damn refractory period had eaten up some of his time, too. About twenty minutes for Arthur, after the first one, and the buildup to the second one a bit longer. The third, Arthur had just given him, in a series of hoarse cries and inelegant, jerky, twisty movements. That's how Eames liked Arthur though: inelegant. He already looked a little unhinged. Eames glanced at the clock. They'd been at it for two hours.

Eames kindly released his arms yet again, allowing him to stretch. Gently rubbed his shoulders while Arthur looked around a little dazedly, like the lights were too bright for him. Eames liked him in hotels like this, too, especially these old European hotels where Arthur looked kind of at home.

"I'll give you a few minutes, yeah?" Eames said. "I'm going to go jerk myself off so I don't shoot all over you."

"I can do it for you," Arthur said. His voice sounded raw. He tried to brace his weight on his hands and his arms shook. "Or I can..." He leaned forward on the bad and crawled towards Eames. By the time he got to him, his arms gave out and he face-planted onto his thigh.

"That's an option," Eames said, and let Arthur suck him slowly. He actually quite enjoyed the way Arthur felt a little weak, a little tired already. He wanted to pet his hair – he had a thing for Arthur's stupid, soft girl-hair – but he didn't want to shame him, either, by being condescending. Arthur didn't need contact right now.

And his mouth was really, really good. Soft, pliant like it never was when he was clothed and armed and deadly. He thought of Arthur like that, thought of undoing him the way he hadn't even begun to yet, of disarming him roughly and stealing his vocabulary and his coherence and his breath and, oh, fuck, – and that tipped him over the edge. He gripped the sheets and came into Arthur's mouth.

A few minutes later, Arthur said, "That was fun, huh?"

Eames laughed at him and pushed him onto his back, saying, "Oh, my love."

Because that was the thing: Arthur could be so _silly._

** ** **

Hour 3

With two fingers and nothing more, he'd wrought tears from Arthur. He felt a little bad actually, sort of like a villain for reducing him to this. For making Arthur struggle so, for making him make those terrible, desperate sounds.

"Shall I stop?" Eames asked him, unable to stop staring. Because the view from where he was, well, he would carry it with him when they separated, and probably jerk off to it for months. He kneeled between Arthur's thighs, doing what he knew he was good at with his fingers, because he'd been fucking Arthur for a while over the last few years (and Arthur had been fucking him right back with as much enthusiasm,) and he knew his way around him by now.

"No please," Arthur said, stringing the sounds together as if they were one word. "No please, no please."

"You're all right?"

Arthur nodded, staring blankly at the ceiling. His tongue darted out to lick his lips. Some kind of weird affection surged up through Eames then, and he dipped his head down and kissed the inside of his thigh. God, he could sit here all day like this, playing Arthur like an instrument and enjoying the symphony.

He withdrew his fingers and Arthur responded with a cracked gasp, arching off the mattress. "No please."

Arthur's cell phone rang, startling both of them. Arthur just looked around the room as if he'd never heard his ring tone before and said, "Cobb? Fuck?"

 _I really must be a villain_ , Eames thought, as he reached for the phone. Both of Arthur's hands were tied so he kindly answered it for him and pressed it to Arthur's ear.

"Uhh..." Arthur said into his phone.

"Say hello," Eames coached.

"Yes, hello." Arthur was really quick to put his business voice on, he was so damn good at what he did. "Cobb. Hi. What's... How... What's up."

Eames untied one of Arthur's wrists and guided it to the phone. Arthur mouthed some words at him, what looked akin to _fuck you, you fucking fuck_ or maybe, _Thank you Mr. Eames, I need to take this call._ He wasn't sure which.

He ran his hand along the tight muscle of Arthur's arched thigh. Arthur stretched his leg out as if he couldn't hold it up anymore, and Eames stroked his leg fondly.

"Umm, we're, we're, we're working on that," Arthur said. "It's, we needed to take some time. To."

Eames leaned forward and closed his mouth around Arthur's cock. Arthur told Cobb, " _Hnn_ ," and then, "oh god, no, I'm fine."

Eames went slow, because the idea was to make this last and not ruin it. And, well goodness, if he made Arthur come from this, he'd have to start all over.

"Yes," Arthur said, in reply to something Cobb told him. And then, "Yes, yes. Christ. No, I'm fine. I swear I'm fine, _god_."

Eames chuckled and licked him slowly.

"No no, I said I'm fine, _fuck_ , you don't have to come here, everything is fine. Cobb!" Arthur pulled the phone away from his ear, held it angrily in front of his face and said, "Eames is giving me head, all right? Fuck!"

Eames laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

** ** **

Hour 4

Eames was starting to think this was going to be impossible. Arthur had come again, against his orders not to, and was now taking fucking forever to get it back up. He had tried, dazedly, to jerk Eames off with shaking fingers, slick with sweat, and Eames had batted his wandering hands away, because this wasn't about him. And – he knew how unfair this was – he just wasn't ready for another go yet.

It was the end of the fourth hour now and Arthur was lying on his back in the damp bed, splay-legged and exhausted. His lips were dry.

"I've been a terrible host," Eames said. "And I haven't really considered your welfare. You must be thirsty. Don't go anywhere." Which was a joke, because he doubted that Arthur could get up if he wanted to.

He came back to the bed with a water bottle, and he sat next to Arthur and slipped his arm under his shoulders.

"That's not necessary," Arthur said. But then he tried to get the cap of the bottle off and his hands were too wet. He had to wipe them on the sheet and try again. "Thanks," he said, breathless around the bottle. He drank half in one go and then said, "I probably lost like a quart of fluid."

Eames smiled, watching him, feeling indulgent. He wanted to touch him a great deal more than he was and figured he'd earned the right by now. So he reached out his hand and swept aside the hair that had fallen over Arthur's forehead. Arthur considered rolling his eyes at the gesture and then didn't.

"Arthur," Eames said.

"What." Like a statement instead of a question.

Eames liked that about Arthur, too, his bluntness. "I'm quite fond of you."

Arthur laughed, still shaky. "Yeah, I gathered as much."

There was a moment of stillness that would have been awkward a few years ago or even when they first started fucking, but felt natural now. Eames leaned forward and kissed Arthur soundly, thoroughly, keeping his hands to himself for now. Arthur answered by tipping his head back and responding tiredly, his lips wet and cold from the water.

Then Eames turned away and left Arthur on the bed, while he pulled his gun from the bedside desk. He emptied the magazine, double-checked it to make sure it was empty and then clicked it back in. At the sound of the magazine, Arthur swung his hand to his side and reached for a holster that wasn't there.

"Fuck!" he said, when he saw Eames turning with the gun in his hand. "Asshole, you scared me."

Eames had to grin at him, always on guard like that. Arthur could take guns like this to pieces and put them back together. That's what Eames wanted to do to him. He sat beside him on the bed again and leaned close. Arthur didn't pull away.

"Such madness I want to commit on you," Eames said, his lips close to Arthur's ear. He pulled away to see his reaction.

"Well, such as?" Arthur's heartbeat jumped visibly, shaking his entire ribcage.

"Mad things," Eames said, and raised the gun so it pressed against that leaping heartbeat. He pushed forward, urging Arthur back onto the bed. "Vile things, awful ones that normal people don't consider."

"None of that surprises me," Arthur said, letting himself be pushed backwards. And then, bless him, he put the water bottle down and stretched his arms out to the sides again, waiting to be restrained.

Eames was quick about retying his wrists, because if that's what Arthur still wanted after they had come this far, that's what he would certainly get.

"I can't promise you any more fireworks from me," Arthur said, which was a joke because he was already starting to get hard again.

"I can," Eames said, and trailed the muzzle of the gun across his clavicles, first one and then the other. He followed the gun with his lips. Down the side of Arthur's ribs, slowly. Into the sharp angle of his hip. There, Arthur gave him a quick intake of breath. "Such madness," Eames repeated, dragging the gun down the crease where his thigh met his hip, and using it to push his legs apart again.

"Oh my god, oh my god," Arthur said.

"Yes," Eames whispered, pressing his face into his lower belly. "Yes my love, tonight I am."

 

** ** **

Hour 5

 

It was the gun inside him that made Arthur's eyes roll back so that only the whites showed under fluttering eyelids, and for a second it made Eames nervous because Arthur stopped breathing. When he did breathe again, it was to suck in a great, gasping breath like a drowning man and then he sobbed, almost heartbreaking.

Well, almost. If it wasn't turning out to be such fun, anyway.

And Eames could admit that this really was some kind of mad, fucked up game they were playing at now; he had never done such a thing in his life and he was stunned that he'd gotten the nerve to do it and that Arthur had allowed him to.

Everything in the room looked bright and sharp and every detail of Arthur stood out to him: the freckles, the flush, the dark line of hair, the flex of muscles in his forearms as he curled his hands into fists and pulled against the restraints, the minute, weak trembling of his thighs.

He was close; Eames knew the signs. Too close. He removed the gun and tossed it to the end of the bed.

"God, no," Arthur said, his voice low and ripped apart.

"Shh," Eames said, placing the flat of his hand against Arthur's stomach, stilling his hips. "Not yet, remember?"

"Please," Arthur said.

"Oh, now you're breaking my heart, Arthur." Eames felt oddly fond, and fully evil. "I'll leave you alone for a bit, yes?"

"Please don't," Arthur said, his voice sounding honest with panic.

"No, really. I'll be right back. Going to go jerk off again if you can believe it. Jesus Christ."

"No you don't have to do that Eames you can just please, please you can just fuck me already, please."

"But then I'll lose my concentration," Eames said. He gently moved Arthur's thigh aside and climbed from between them, then got off the bed, stretching. He took a moment to look at Arthur: messy, trembling, obviously aching for it.

"I don't think I can do this anymore," Arthur said.

Eames sat down beside him, quickly, and placed his palm against the side of his face. "Do you want me to stop the game? Be honest. We can."

Arthur almost responded, then closed his mouth just as quickly. Licked his lips. Glanced down the bed at his own splayed body, his obvious need. He looked frantic, like he might panic because he knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"No." Just a whisper, the likes of which Eames had never heard from his mouth.

"I'm glad, you filthy thing." He leaned over him and kissed him, gripping his hair and holding him still. Arthur tried to twist his hips to turn toward him, probably unaware that he'd done it. Eames put his hand against his hip and pressed him back down. "Wait for me then, all right? There's a love." He gave him a friendly pat on the thigh and then set about taking care of his own business.

Originally he was going to go and do this alone, but he had just fucked his good working mate with a gun, so it mattered little if he watched him jerk off.

"God," Eames said, touching himself. "The miscreants and deviants that dreaming has made of us. Yeah?"

Arthur's response was a stuttered sound that made no sense.

Eames took pity on him, released one of his hands, and placed it between his legs. "You can do it for me, if you'd like, actually. Since you're here."

"Bastard I should make you wait like you're..." Arthur said in a breathless rush, but got to work quickly anyway.

 

** ** **

Hour 6

 

Somewhere in the last hour, Arthur became someone else, or maybe he became no one, nothing more than a physical thing, released from thought and open.

Eames had untied his wrists and Arthur had just lain on the bed, staring with glazed eyes, quiet, and responding to everything that Eames did to him. He was slow, his limbs heavy, mouth wet and eyes gleaming, hands warm and wandering over Eames's back.

Eames had never seen such a thing, had never seen such pliancy. Could not believe he was the cause of it. Felt hungry for more power. He'd had Arthur here for six hours and finally Arthur had gone to some strange place in his mind, but a place where Eames could still reach him.

He was kissing him now, petting him like a lover (in all their years, during all their little tumbles and rolls in the hay, they never really did the 'petting' thing and now he was finding it quite nice,) and grinding against him, even though he was already pretty much spent for the night. It just felt good.

Arthur was still hard but had given up begging for it, content to be touched anywhere. Or so Eames guessed.

"Get you some more water," Eames murmured against his temple.

"Okay," Arthur said, and let him go willingly. He didn't move while Eames went to the mini fridge.

And this time, when Eames snaked an arm under his shoulders and lifted him, Arthur didn't protest or shove him away or roll his eyes. In fact he closed his eyes as he took the bottle of water and sucked about half of it down again.

His skin was damp and warm all over and Eames pressed his face into the juncture where his shoulder and neck met and breathed him in. Clean sweat and desire.

"What next?" Arthur asked, calm and accepting.

"We've been here for six hours," Eames said. "I've kept you right there on the border of an orgasm that might prove to be fatal for some of that time, which I can hardly believe."

"Okay," Arthur said.

Eames pushed him back down. Arthur went willingly, staring up at him with a half smile that was sort of unnerving. He looked, in a weird way, confident. Or proud that he'd lasted so long, maybe.

"I'm going to make you come, then," Eames said, and fitted himself over Arthur.

"Okay."

"And then maybe call emergency services."

Arthur laughed breathlessly at that. "Touch me. End this."

Eames took Arthur's wrists in both his hands and pressed them into the bed. He leaned down, full length, and pushed forward, crushing the breath out of Arthur. He kissed him, stealing what was left of it. Every time Arthur tried to take a breath, Eames stole it from him with a forward press and another kiss.

"Can't..." Arthur managed to say.

"I know," Eames said, again feeling gloriously evil as he moved against him.

He actually watched Arthur get dizzy and see stars, he could see it happening in his eyes, could see him fight for a full breath and feel light-headed when he didn't get it.

"God," Arthur choked out.

"Shall I stop?" He pulled his thigh up between Arthur's legs, dragged his hips across Arthur's hips, pressing down, burning him with friction.

Arthur shook his head, frantic once more, mouth open, unable to form words. His hands fluttered numbly across Eames's back, spasming gently.

"Do you need it now?"

A nod this time, and those hands pulling him closer, a little more insistent, and Eames couldn't believe, yet again, for the thousandth time on this night, that Arthur was letting him do this. That he wanted this.

He slid one arm under Arthur's low back, pulling them together hard, and felt on his shoulder the rush of breath that he forced out of him again. Arthur's knees came up to cradle his hips.

"Please, please," Arthur said. Then, with a moment of initiative, took one of his hands from around Eames and pressed it to the side of his face. "Please."

Eames dropped his head against Arthur's shoulder and obliged him. He rolled halfway off of him and reached between them, finally touching him, as he had really wanted to all night.

Arthur jerked in his arms as if it hurt, and maybe it did a little at this point. Likely. So Eames went slowly, his hand already wet and slick. Arthur arched up into his grip with a cry that should have had a voice, but had long since been worn out. Every exhale harder than every inhale. Eames watched him carefully, watched him come apart in his hands until he was almost hyperventilating and he kind of knew how this was going to end.

"I can't, I can't, I can't," Arthur started repeating mindlessly to the ceiling.

"Hush," Eames said against the corner of his mouth. What was he waiting for, Eames wondered. Why couldn't he?

 _Ahh._

"You can, Arthur," he said. "You may. Go on. Let go."

Everything broke free of him at Eames's words: the cry at the back of his throat, the tension in his entire body, and it seemed to go on forever, continuing to torment him.

It was a little intimidating, and also the hottest thing Eames had ever seen in his life, in or out of dreams. He held on to him as if holding him together, actually considering for one mad moment that Arthur might fly into pieces or lose his mind. Which was ridiculous, but then Arthur was making sounds that didn't make sense in any language that Eames knew of, and his hands were reaching out to grab at nothing and there were honest-to-god tears in his eyes. He looked for a moment as if he was in agony.

"I've got you," Eames said, hearing a little bit of alarm in his voice. "Arthur, I've got you, all right?"

Arthur stilled in his arms, slowly. His hands dropped to his sides and his head fell back and his breathing still sounded too jagged.

"Shh," Eames said, because he didn't know what else to say. He wiped his hand on the sheet behind him and then placed it gently in the center of Arthur's chest, rubbing slowly. "Christ, Arthur. Come back down, you're a little frightening."

Arthur murmured some half-formed word of reassurance as his eyes slipped shut.

"Arthur?" Eames gently tapped his face. Thought logically about how he'd crushed the breath out of him and had robbed the blood supply to his brain for the last hour or so. And he had seen enough people sleeping and enough people in a dead faint that he knew the difference.

That was all right, he thought. Arthur needed to rest after this. And Eames didn't want to surrender his hold on him yet anyway.

He'd never fucked anyone senseless before, he thought with a certain amount of pride, and couldn't help grinning.

 

** ** **

Hour 7

It was Arthur's trembling in his arms that made him decide to wake him.

"Arthur," he called, shaking him a bit by the shoulders. "Come round now. Come on."

Arthur cracked his eyes open and rolled his head toward Eames, taking a second to orient himself. That, too, was unusual. No one came awake more quickly or smoothly, more ready to continue, than Arthur.

Eames pulled his arm out from under him, gently. He sat back against the headboard and took a sip of the water that Arthur had left.

"Hey," Arthur said, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. Then he held his hand out for the water bottle.

Eames handed it over to him without a word and Arthur drank, his eyes never leaving Eames's face as he tipped his head back. His usual sharpness was back in his eyes, something knowing that had been gone from him in the last few hours. And a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips, around the bottle.

It occurred to Eames then that Arthur had gone willingly to the places that Eames wanted to take him. He hadn't been acting – everything he'd shown him had been honest. But his surrender of control had been a choice, one that he could have backed out of at any time. He could have snapped himself free of everything Eames had done to him.

It didn't disappoint him. It exhilarated him, actually. He thought that maybe Arthur had never given that to anyone else.

Also, as much as he got off on Arthur's surrender, he liked him better this way: with his edges sharp and his corners tucked, even naked and soaked in cooling sweat.

"Wow," Arthur said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and setting aside the empty water bottle.

"Yeah," Eames replied.

"I feel like I came for days. My head's still buzzing. Thank you for introducing me to my inner pervert."

"I doubt your pervert has ever been that much 'inner'," Eames said. "You just kept him quiet for a while."

"Maybe. We did some things tonight, though, that I never... I don't know. Considered, I guess. Or maybe I considered them, but it didn't seem like a reality."

"You don't regret it, do you?" Eames asked.

"No," Arthur scoffed.

And Eames got it, again. Of course Arthur didn't regret it. He didn't do things he thought he would regret. He was too careful for that, always. Eames started to wonder who really had the reins tonight, but he liked it either way. And he wanted to kiss Arthur again.

"I'm a simple creature," Eames said, plucking at the hotel sheets, "but I feel very complicated right now."

"Why?"

"Because I would like to continue to, you know, touch you and I'm not sure if I should."

"I could have broken your arm at any point during the night. Or, more realistically, I could have asked you to stop. I mean you realize what you did to me all night, right?"

"Well of course," Eames said.

"Then you're allowed to touch me, for christ's sake. You're shy all of a sudden? What the fuck?"

Eames reached out - his prior confidence returning and burning a hole through his ' _what have I wrought_ ' - feelings, and cupped the back of Arthur's neck, dragging him forward. He kissed him like he had before, soundly and thoroughly. He put his other arm around his back and pulled him tight against him, almost tipping both of them over.

There was a time when he was younger when he had about fucked his way through London. All sorts of ladies and men, some plain, some beautiful, some funny, smart, tragic, heroic. But Arthur was something else. He'd never had an Arthur before.

"I'm a little bit afraid that I might want to keep you forever," he murmured, and immediately regretted it.

"Oxytocin talking," Arthur said with a smile. "I'm soaked with it right now, believe me."

"Hot," Eames said. Arthur was so clinical – and he liked him like this, too. "You're so romantic."

"Well you know that I'm not," Arthur said. "You've always known that."

"True," Eames said, and went back to kissing. He pulled the blanket tighter around Arthur's shoulders and thought it would be all right to stroke his hair, so he did. Arthur allowed this, smiling.

"I don't make any decisions after sex. Have you ever noticed that, Eames?"

"I know you get quiet."

"That's why."

"Ah."

"But that's not to say I don't make them when I haven't just fucked, or been fucked. Not all of my decisions have been good ones, of course. No one's are. But for the most part I think I've been fairly logical and successful."

"Where are you going with this?" Eames asked.

Arthur sat back, a little huffy, and folded his hands in his lap. In the light of the hotel room, the lushness of the old-world European-ness of it, and with his hair all mussed up, he looked very young.

"How long have we been doing this?" Arthur asked.

"What, fucking? A few years, on and off."

"Why do we separate for months at a time?"

Eames shrugged. Arthur definitely had the reins now. "Because of work, of course. We get called our separate ways."

"Right. Who do I always come back to, though? Who do _you_ always come back to?"

"You?"

Arthur smiled. "I make the decision to continue this thing between us every time I see you. We go months without seeing each other, I think once it was more than a year. That's more than enough time for me to come to a rational decision that you're a bad idea. I've never come to that decision."

Eames remained quiet, thinking about this. Earlier he had thought of Arthur as a companionable sex partner, a fun diversion but one he was ridiculously fond of. This logic thing was all news to him. This thing about Arthur considering him when they were apart.

"I let you fuck me with a gun!" Arthur said, throwing his hands up in annoyance. "That better mean something to you, asshole!"

Eames couldn't help it. He laughed, straight up laughed at Arthur's exasperation just as he had done for years. There were times when nothing was funnier to him than Arthur's exasperation and he often goaded him to it, just for kicks. He laughed until he couldn't breathe.

"Man, fuck you," Arthur said, winging the empty water bottle at him. There was laughter in his voice too, though.

"Yes, well maybe next time," Eames said.

"Yeah, maybe I'll fuck you with your stupid rocket launcher, how about that, _darling._ "

"Fantastic," Eames said, and took Arthur by the wrist, pulling him close and crushing him again.

"Okay, no actual cuddling though, let's be clear on that." But at the same time, his arms went around Eames's back too. "And I don't think I'll be a sexually functioning human being for a few days, probably. I think it's tapped out for now."

"Interesting," Eames said into Arthur's hair. "I'm learning so much about the human body and its limits, so much more than at university. Hmm. What have we learned tonight?"

Arthur bit him, the little bastard actually bit, and marked up his shoulder. "I'm a little more concerned," he said, "about what Cobb learned tonight."

"What?" Eames said. And then he remembered the telephone call. "Oh. Right. Well, fuck."

"It's not like he didn't know," Arthur said. "But now he has a soundtrack."

"Not my fault you can't control your outbursts."

To his surprise, Arthur was the first to lie back, pulling Eames along with him.

Eventually, by mutual consent, they moved apart for comfort and lay on the bed in silence that Eames could only think of as "companionable."

"What time tomorrow?" Eames asked, glancing at the clock. It was 11:33 PM.

"Eight. I've got the clock set for six." He sounded tired. "Can we move this to the other bed? I feel sort of filthy."

"You are filthy," Eames said, getting up. He held his hand out to Arthur, who took it and let himself be pulled up tiredly.

Arthur's legs were a little shaky on his way to the clean bed, and he collapsed into it gratefully, as if everything had finally caught up. Eames felt the same, as he got on the other side. He shut the light off. Fairly soon it was quiet save for the sound of the heater coming to life. Eames started to drift off into a very blank state of sleep, when Arthur's voice roused him again.

"Eames?"

"Yeah?" he asked, groggy, noting that Arthur sounded quite clear. "Arthur?"

"Thanks," Arthur said. "For this."

"Yes," Eames answered, a little dazed himself now. "I should be thanking you. I understand what you did tonight."

"Oh. Yeah."

"So," he said, and turned to face him in the dark. He felt Arthur shift to face him, too. They had done everything together in the light, but words like this were easier in the dark. "So, thank you Arthur."

"Welcome."

He felt Arthur's hand on his face, briefly, trailing fingertips over his nose and lips before retreating. And he slept the rest of the night, without dreams, and without needing to move.


End file.
